Up First from NPR - Texas Primary Results, South Carolina Rejects Redistricting, Iran Deal Whiplash

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Ken Paxton defeated four-term Senator John Cornyn in the Texas Republican primary by nearly two to one, setting up what could be the most competitive Senate race in the state in decades as Democrats see an opening. South Carolina Republicans blocked President Trump's push to redraw the state's congressional map, with some in the party warning the nationwide redistricting effort is energizing Democrats and independents ahead of the midterms. And President Trump has declared progress on an Iran deal at least six times and still no deal, now as negotiations continue Trump is pushing for more Gulf countries to join the Abraham Accords.Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Megan Pratz, Larry Kaplow, Rebekah Metzler, Mohamad ElBardicy and Taylor Haney.It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.Our director is Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.And our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.(0:00) Introduction(02:36) Texas Primary Results(06:32) South Carolina Rejects Redistricting(10:06) Iran Deal WhiplashSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

There's no air conditioning at NPR West? Not in these studios. So some parts of the building have air conditioning, but they made sure that your part does not. I'm sure there's nothing. One way or another. Either Studio C leaks water from a rainstorm. Like, I'm not kidding, mid-show right in front of me, a stream of water, not a little bit, a stream of water. Wow.

Or I come in here and it's boiling hot. or it's freezing cold. Or the ants. In Studio E. Oh, the ants, too. Yeah, the ants. That was a great. That was a fun time.

Are you getting the message yet, sir? Texas Senator John Cornyn lost a primary against Ken Paxton, the candidate backed by President Trump. Republicans see a demonstration of Trump's power. Democrats see a weaker candidate they hope to beat this fall. I'm Steven Skiype with A. Martinez. And this is up first from NPR News. South Carolina Republicans rejected the president's push to redraw. congressional maps before the midterms. They warned it could backfire helping Democrats.

You energize them to come out and vote against you because people will vote when they're angry. And I think what we're seeing today across the state with the record turnout that we're seeing is that we've made some people mad. And at least half a dozen times, the president has said the war with Iran is almost over, but still no deal. Will this push for Gulf countries to normalize ties with Israel complicate negotiations? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. A pair of Republican senators have lost their seats in less than two weeks. Yeah, one of them is John Corny. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Cornyn on Tuesday.

He's been a senator for four terms. Paxton out-polled Cornyn by a margin of nearly two to one. President Trump supported Paxton, endorsing him late after Paxton was leading in many polls. Trump also recently supported the successful primary challenge to Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider has been following all of this. So Andrew, help us understand the scope of Paxton's victory over Cornyn. Well, like many elections across Texas and around the country, the contest is very much about a potential changing of the Guard. Cornyn is in his mid-70s.

He's a staunch conservative, but he represents the establishment wing of the Texas Republican Party. The parties moved considerably to the right since he was first elected senator when George W. Bush was in the White House. Paxton's younger. He's long been a favorite with what has been developed into the MAGA wing of the party. He made the case over the course of the past year plus that Cornyn's time was passed, and particularly that Cornyn wasn't enough of the supporter of President Trump. Cornyn repeatedly countered that he's voted for Trump's agenda more than 99% of the time, but that's a message he wasn't able to get through to a majority of Republican primary voters.

Yeah, early voting was already happening when president's endorsement came. So how much role did you think that played in Paxton's win? Well, Paxton gave Trump a lot of credit for pushing him over the top. Here's Paxton giving his victory speech in Plano, Texas. President Trump is the leader of our party and his endorsement in this most power is the most powerful force in politics. And I'm honored to have his support, and I look forward to working with him in the Senate to deliver for Texas. Last month, Texas public opinion research released a poll that suggested a Trump endorsement. would propel Paxton to a double-digit victory over Cornyn, and that's exactly what happened.

Okay, now Paxton is the Republican candidate against the Democratic nominee, and that's State Representative James Tullerico. Did Paxson give any indication at all how he plans to campaign against Talleyco? Paxton's already arguing that Tala RICO is too far left to represent the state. He pointed to Tala RICO's previous statements on issues ranging from immigration to the economy to transgender rights. Now, traditionally, that line of attack has been very effective for Republicans running statewide in Texas. The last time a Democrat won statewide office here was more than 30 years ago. But it's not clear how it will work this time. One of the ways

Tala Rico became the Democratic nominee was by pointing to his record of flipping a state house district that previously went for Trump by double digits. Tala Rico's already launched his own campaign focusing on the corruption allegations that have docked Paxton since he took the Attorney General's office. In fact, today marks the third anniversary of Paxon, impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House on some of those charges. That's an impeachment that ended in his acquittal by the Texas Senate. It should be a fascinating race. What are some of the other major developments that you saw in Tuesday's elections?

That changing of the guard phenomenon wasn't just limited to Republicans. Another race we saw called early and by a wide margin was in the Democratic primary runoff for the 18th congressional district. Thanks to last year's mid-decade redistricting, Congressman Christian Menofy was forced into a race against Congressman Almond. Green, Menafee won that face-off. Republicans targeted Green as part of the redistricting, and this was their first real victory out of that.

Menopi is in his late 30s, and Green is in his late 70s. And while Green had seniority on his side, this is a district that hasn't had steady representation for a few years, and that was very fresh in voters' minds. That's Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. Lawmakers in South Carolina have rejected President Trump's efforts to reshape voting maps before the midterm elections. A new map in South Carolina could have

flipped the state's only house seat held by a Democrat, Congressman James Clyburn. On the same day, in Alabama court, blocked a Republican-backed congressional map ahead of the midterms because it was, in their words, intentional race-based discrimination. Still, Republicans have redrawn more districts in their favor across the country than Democrats have. Joining us is Gavin Jackson of South Carolina a public radio. So, Gavin, how did this play out in the state capital of Columbia? Yeah, well, on a procedural vote, over a third of the Republicans in the Senate, 14 of them voted with the Democrats to effectively kill a bill that would have changed the maps. It's been a whirlwind three weeks here with redistricting going from not being on anyone's radar

to dominating the final days of the legislative session. The push was briefly stopped in the Senate, which prompted Governor Henry McMaster to call a special session to take up a new map. And he's been saying that Trump needs to keep a Republican Congress to carry a out his agenda. Now a handful of prominent Senate Republicans continued to push back against this process that went into Memorial Day weekend, so it's been busy. And this all came to a head yesterday. That was the first day of early voting for the primaries, and Democrats were urging people to go to the pools, and more than 30,000 votes have been cast already as lawmakers were meeting. So some of them were even getting updates during that debate. And around that time, lawmakers faced a couple of

procedural votes in the Senate to get the redistricting bill to a vote, and it lost. Yeah, it's been a little different in each state, in every state. So what's the pushback about there? Yeah, again, they talked about the time crunch with the primary starting. Senate Majority Majority Leader Shane Massey, a Republican was outspoken against this from the beginning, and he raised constitutional concerns and said that the plan could backfire on Republicans by motivating Democrats and independent voters. Here he is Tuesday.

You energize them to come out and vote against you because people will vote when they're angry. And I think what we're seeing today across the state with the record turnout, early voting turnout that we're seeing is that we've made some people mad. Just having the debate. Yeah, senators here really pride themselves on being deliberative and not letting Washington tell them what to do. Then you factor unexpected lawsuits, costs of delaying the primaries, and some of them said it wasn't so much a rebuke to Trump as a reality check.

Yeah, but the president usually gets his way on this kind of thing. In Indiana, he helped defeat some Republicans in primaries after they voted against redistricting, so aren't they worried about that there? There was definitely an undertone in the House where all. all 124 members wrote for re-election, but that was different in the Senate because they're not up for another two years, so they're not too concerned about that. Now, some Republicans said that they were worried that redistricting could have made these seats that are safe now more competitive.

And the governor said that he was disappointed, but that he would not be calling lawmakers back again. Now, we mentioned the setback for Republicans in Alabama as well. What happened there? Yeah, that's another state that took up redistricting after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in April, and they're going for one seat like they did in South Carolina. A federal court temporarily blocked that yesterday, but it's expected to go to the Supreme Court, which has approved that redistricting once already. Now, around the country, like in Florida and Texas, Republicans have redistricted about eight or nine seats their way, and more so than Democrats have.

So the Louisiana Republicans are also working on one seat this week, and primaries are underway in the field may pretty much be said except for some of these court battles right now. All right, that's Gavin Jackson of South Carolina Public Radio. Gavin, thanks. Thanks. NPR's Franco Ordonez has noticed. a pattern in how President Trump talks about Iran? Trump says the war is over or almost over, then clearly it is not. Over the weekend, the president said a groundbreaking deal with Iran was, quote, largely negotiated. A day later, he said there was no rush, while as AIDS indicated, the deal was not done. And then on Monday, U.S. forces attacked Iranian speedboats that they said

were attempting to lay minds. So Frank Ordonez is here with us now. How many times have you seen this happen? Yeah, A, it's happened at least a half dozen times dating back to late March. I mean, he's repeated several variations that a deal is close, that an agreement was largely negotiated, that a framework exists. And then, of course, it just doesn't happen. I mean, take this weekend, after almost three months of war, Trump was talking about an almost finalized deal that would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz. He was almost actually taking a victory lap, thanking intermediaries for their help with negotiations. And then, of course, you had to blowback from Republicans in Israel. I would say that this was the most emphatic he's been about an upcoming deal, but it's happened before.

I mean, last month, Trump said they were very close to a deal and that the two sides agreed to even dig up Iran's enrich uranium. The reality is, while the president has repeatedly projected this kind of optimism, there is yet to be anything really concrete or durable toward a resolution. And now he's trying to add more things to the deal. He's pressing on more countries to join the Abraham Accords. That's the regional agreement that seeks to unnormalize relations with Israel. But asking for that could make reaching a deal a lot more difficult. Yeah, it really could as Iran sees the Abraham Accords as anti-Iran. I mean, I was talking with Matthew Kronig, who had the Iran portfolio at the Pentagon

in the Obama administration. He also served under George W. Bush and Trump. You know, he says the deal is already complicated enough. It would make more sense to be used as a kind of carrot and stick approach, where you tell Ron you'd better make this deal or else we're going to make dynamics in the region much more difficult for you by expanding the Accords. But he said this actually may be more about sending a message to Israel. One way it might make sense is if you're dealing with different audiences in the Abraham Accords is actually aimed at Israel and Netanyahu and saying,

I know you're not happy that we're on the verge of making peace with the Islamic Republic. But please stand down for now. There's something else in it for. you. And that, of course, would be a better security environment overall for Israel. Okay, so if it's a better security environment, then why is it a hard sell to get other countries to join? Well, the biggest obstacle is the lack of a Palestinian state. Many Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, have maintained a position that they will not normalize ties with Israel without a clear path towards creating one. And it's something that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, has said, will never happen. So how much are political pressures playing into all this? I mean, I'd say quite a bit.

Trump is facing growing pressure from various fronts to take action, to reopen the straight of Hormuz, to get a handle on gas prices. They actually, gas prices hit a new high over a Memorial Day weekend. And polls show that the war is unpopular with many Americans. And Trump's approval ratings are also dropping. And Republicans worry that they could lose the majority of in the midterms, both in the House and the Senate. That's White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Thanks a lot. Thank you. That's up first for Wednesday, May 27th. I'm May Martinez.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's up first was edited by Megan Pratt, Larry Kaplow, Rebecca Metzler, Muhammad El Bardisi, and Taylor Haney. It was produced by Zia Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zoe Van Genhoven, and our technical director is Carly. strange. Good morning, Carly. Our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin. Join us again tomorrow.